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10
years ago, the average middle class family won
in court
10
years ago, race-based student assignment died
10
years ago, low student performance was forced
into the spotlight
Front Page of the
Charlotte Observer 9-11-1999
When people think of 9-11, images of
terrorism, carnage and Muslim extremism come to
mind. These days, '9-11' universally (and
sadly) refers to September 11th, 2001, the day
of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
For me, I also think about 9-11-99, two years
earlier to the day (a Saturday) when the above
headline and picture appeared on the front of
the Charlotte Observer. In 1999 CMS and
Charlotte's elite were forced to deal honestly
with poor and middle class parents for the first
time.
In the Charlotte Observer published photo
above are Larry Gauvreau, Jim Puckett and me
walking out of the Federal Courthouse building
after reading the decision of Federal Judge
Potter banning race-based student assignment.
Larry was one of the plaintiff's. Jim Puckett
was on the School Board and I was on the County
Commission (even then). We worked together to
bring an end to race-based student assignment
along with the original plaintiff (Bill
Cappachione and his daughter), the 'Grant
Intervenors' (Larry and other middle class
parents) and various lawyers who believed, as I
do, that CMS was discriminating against white
students by refusing to allow them to attend a
school close to home.
While I wasn't a part of the lawsuit, I was
friends with those that were and often ended up
speaking in news articles and with the media to
relay information that the 'plaintiffs' could
not discuss openly.
After we walked out of the courthouse with the
decision to greet reporters on Friday, 9-10-1999
we arranged to have a party at Jim Puckett's
house the following evening of the 11th. We (the
plaintiffs and elected officials pushing for the
end of busing and others) brought lots of copies
of the Observer front page above and passed them
around signing them. Mine is framed and in my
office.
During those times, anyone who uttered the words
'neighborhood schools' was branded and called
names. To oppose busing was to be a 'racist'. To
oppose Charlotte's assignment plan of busing was
to anger the elite that ran Charlotte.
Charlotte had been the place that claimed to
make 'busing work'. It was lie, but a creative
lie is often successful. Charlotte's leaders at
the time (whether they knew it or not) followed
the game plan set out in World War Two by one of
the Nazi's top leaders:
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating
it, people will eventually come to believe it.
The lie can be maintained only for such time as
the State can shield the people from the
political, economic and/or military consequences
of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important
for the State to use all of its powers to
repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal
enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
truth is the greatest enemy of the State."-
Joseph Goebbels
In Charlotte's case - the elite, for
decades, kept from the public the truth about
the lack of success of busing. They also
squelched dissent by dumping tons of money into
the political system to insure 'their people'
won. This was a prevarication of massive
proportions designed to prop up the belief that
all students were getting a good education and
that 'diversity' worked when in reality Black
children were being shuffled from school to
school to hide the problem from the public.
Another picture of the event on the courthouse
steps with Paul Haisley, a candidate for school
board at the time, was published the next day in
follow-up articles (photo by the Charlotte
Observer):
Yet, those of us who believed that CMS should
'fix' its educational problems and close the
race gap firmly believed that busing kids
(black, white or in between) was wrong and had
the effect of hiding the poor performance of
minorities and the very achievement gap CMS
professed to be worried about.
Prior to this court decision, CMS would split
poor performing minority students among lots of
different schools so that no one school's test
scores looked to bad. It was called the 60-40
ratio. If a schools results looked bad, after 3
years or more, they would bus (transfer) the
underperforming children to a different school
so that CMS wouldn't have to address their
failure at any particular school and would never
have to answer why the white-black achievement
gap essentially stayed the same. It was a giant
sad shell game that moved these Black children
from one school to another, one step ahead of
some classification of the school by the
state with a low performing moniker.
In 1996 (three years before) I had run for
County Commission and put 'neighborhood schools'
on my bumper stickers using it as a campaign
slogan for county commission. At that time my
kids were little but would soon be in school. In
those days, anything outside of Fairview Road
wasn't considered by the elite to really be
Charlotte. The rest of us in suburbia outside
Fairview Road were just viewed as 'visitors'. We
could live in Charlotte Mecklenburg but we were
expected to accept what "Mr. Shiney Shoes" told
us. Mr. Shiney Shoes was local columnist Tara
Servatius' (now on WBT 3-5 weekdays) name for
the collective elite that ran Charlotte, raised
money for 'their' candidates and expected
elected officials to vote how they were told.
Her articles are required reading for anyone
wanting to understand what really happened
during that time.
What started the court case was Bill Cappachione
the original plaintiff. He and his wife wanted
his daughter to attend a local elementary
magnet. His daughter was 1/2 white. CMS refused
admittance to a magnet elementary school for
that reason saying that 'diversity' was
necessary to improve the education of all
children. If she had been Black she would have
been admitted. Being 1/2 white was enough of a
taint according to CMS to deny her admission
giving others that were 100% black a slot. After
reflection, Mr. Cappachione sued in Federal
court. I remember Bill calling me about whether
to sue or not. I told him at the time that if he
would sue I would pay the $500 filling fee in
Federal Court. I didn't have to write a check
but those of us at that time in the mid 90's
were determined to stop the reverse
discrimination against white children that was
taken as acceptable by those in power in
Charlotte at the time.
The folks that claimed to 'make busing work'
were those that mostly sent their own kids
to private Charlotte schools. They were in
positions of power and served to be the biggest
promoters of making middle-class and poor
children suffer on school buses for the
intangible and non-educational goal of
'diversity'. They were the ones that pushed
quotas and set-asides ultimately overturned by
Judge Potters decision (upheld later by the US
4th Circuit). Here is an example of how
'suburbia' was pictured in 1999 (a Charlotte
Observer editorial cartoon) by the mainstream
media:
After Judge Potter's decision was announced,
liberals bemoaned the loss of 'diversity' even
though that was never the reason busing was
implemented to begin with. The 'achievement gap'
between black and white students hasn't changed much
with or without busing proving that 'diversity' as
an educational tool is a canard.
After losing in 1999, some feared marches and
riots from the inner-city (there were threats of
that from certain inner-city leaders). This was
fed by a constant stream of commentary painting
suburbia (which was mostly white) as selfish and
mean. In 1999 a deal was struck to not appeal
Judge Potters ruling in exchange for lots of big
dollar bond money for the inner-city. Over the
next 10 years we spent $1 billion (with a 'b')
or more fixing a lot of inner-city schools
because (it was claimed) that was the only way
to fix the achievement gap.
In reality, the achievement gap is not a
function of the newness of a facility, or just
the experience of teachers who are in the
schools. After winning in court and receiving a
promise for a lot of dough for inner-city
schools, Black leaders at the time on the school
board backed by certain inner-city pastors
changed their minds and voted to appeal the
ruling. "Mr. Shiney Shoes" got played by local
Black leaders.
Over the following few years, the US 4th circuit
upheld the decision and CMS was forced to return
to a neighborhood school model. Even so,
mainstream media in Charlotte who were in favor
of quotas and set-asides would paint the new
neighborhood schools 'assignment feeder system'
as benefiting just white kids. Since suburban
parents wanted to protect their kids, they were
called names for holding that belief. See this
cartoon from that time:
Now, 10 years later, it would seem that CMS is
trying to return to busing. Instead of a 'loud
and proud' busing scheme of the past they are
trying to adjust attendance zones quietly in an
attempt to spread poverty around. Unable to fix
the achievement gap, and unwilling to admit its
real cause, CMS is reverting back to hiding its
problem in plain sight by disbursing the
achievement problem across as many schools as
possible. While this is impossible to do at the
elementary school level and tough at the middle
school level - CMS is focusing on high schools.
This is (I believe) what happened to make the
new suburban Mint Hill High school have
a high anticipated poverty level (poor kids
moved from Independence High) and fewer planned
non-poverty students at Myers Park High
proposing to transfer them to East Mecklenburg
to prop up that school.
My generation (Jim Puckett, Larry Gauvreau and a
host of others) fought for the children of that
generation but now the question remains whether
the next generation of parents will sit back and
accept the status-quo or join the fight
against reverse discrimination, quotas, busing
and gerrymandered attendance zones.
While we won the court decision and have fought
for 10 years to insure compliance, it is up to
the next generation of parents in
Charlotte-Mecklenburg to be vigilant and to push
to insure neighborhood schools stays a reality
and not a footnote in some history book.
Bill James, R
County Commission, District 6
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To read some of the details from that time in
September of 1999 10 years ago (if interested),
see these links:
USAToday article about CMS and the end of
busing:
The following is an article I wrote for the
Observer published 11-24-1998 about forcing the
school board into court:
Charlotte Post op-ed (click on pic)
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